It has been tentatively defended the existence of pre-Phoenician settlement on the current urban limits since circa 1250 BC, with Phoenicians establishing a stable colony roughly by the 9th century BC.[4]

History

Ancient history

Roman coin with the Onuba inscription

The city may be the site of Tartessus; it was called Onoba by the Phoenicians. The Greeks kept the name and rendered it Ὄνοβα. It was in the hands of the Turdetani at the time of conquest by Rome, and before the conquest it issued silver coins with Iberian legends. It was called both Onoba Aestuaria[5] or Onuba (used on coinage) during Roman times, or, simply, Onoba.[6] The city was incorporated into the Roman province of Hispania Baetica. According to the Antonine Itinerary, it was a maritime town between the rivers Anas, (modern Guadiana) and Baetis (modern Guadalquivir); it was situated on the estuary of the River Luxia (modern Odiel), and on the road from the mouth of the Anas to Augusta Emerita (modern Mérida).[7] There are still some Roman remains. The city had a mint; and many coins have been found there bearing the name of the town as Onuba.[8] Modern inhabitants are called Onubenses in Spanish. Part of a large wooden wheel that was originally used to drain a copper mine in Huelva was discovered in the late nineteenth century. Dating to the Roman times, it was donated by the British mining company Rio Tinto to the British Museum in 1889.[9]

Early modern history

Modern history

Mines in the countryside send copper and pyrite to the port for export. From about 1873, the most important company in the area was Rio Tinto, the British mining firm.[16]

New pier-jetty of the Minas de Riotinto railway station, about to be opened in 1876.

The mining operations caused severe sulfur dioxide pollution and were frequently accompanied by protests of local farmers, peasants and miners, allied under the anarchist syndicalist leader Maximiliano Tornet. On 4 February 1888, the Pavi Regiment of the Spanish Army opened fire on demonstrators at the village plaza of Rio Tinto. Historians estimate the number of deaths between 100 and 200.[17] Environmentalists from the nearby Nerva village referred to 1888 as the "year of shots" a hundred years later in their protests against the province government's plans to site a large waste dump in a disused mine in the 1990s.[18]

The local football club, Recreativo de Huelva was founded in 1889 by workers of Rio Tinto Group, a British mining company. Nicknamed the "Dean" of Spanish football, it is the longest living football club in the country.

During World War II, the city was a hub of espionage activities led by members of the large British and German communities. German activity centered on reporting British shipping moving in and out of the Atlantic. Most famously, the city was the location where Operation Mincemeat allowed a body carrying false information to wash ashore.[16][21][n. 1]

25 years after the city was declared a Polo de Desarrollo Industrial ("Pole of Industrial Development") in 1964, the population had nearly doubled.[23]

On 11 October 2005, Hurricane Vince made landfall in Huelva as a tropical depression.

Transportation

Huelva is home to Grupo Damas, a provincial bus company. Huelva's train station is now a shadow of its former self, and exists on a spur line. There are no trains to Portugal. Huelva's port hosts Naviera Armas´ ferry Volcan del Teide, on which one can travel weekly to Arrecife and Las Palmas de Gran Canaria.

Port

The is divided in two sectors: the inner port (in the city) and the outer port (the main one):

The Inner Port (one wharf). Constructed in 1972, the East Wharf, replaced constructed harbour facilities of inferior quality between 1900 and 1910. At the moment it is the wharf used for smaller traffic including tourist boats.

The Outer Port (six wharves) was built in 1965, and is located to the south of the River Tinto.

Demographics

Huelva had a population of 149,410 in 2010. The city experienced a population boom in the nineteenth century, due to the exploitation of mineral resources in the area, and another with the construction of the Polo de Desarrollo in the 1960s. It had a population of 5,377 inhabitants in 1787, which had risen to only 8,519 by 1857. From 1887, the city experienced rapid growth, reaching 21,539 residents in 1900, 56,427 in 1940, and 96,689 in 1970. Rapid expansion occurred in the following decades and the population reached 141,479 by 1991.

In the last ten years, immigration both from abroad and from the surrounding area have sustained population growth. In 2007, the city reached the 145,000 mark, while the metropolitan area had nearly 232,000 inhabitants, encompassing the surrounding areas of Aljaraque, Moguer, San Juan del Puerto, Punta Umbría, Gibraleón, and Palos de la Frontera. The 2006 census recorded a foreign population of almost 5,000 people in the urban centre, the majority of whom were of Moroccan origin.

Climate

Huelva and its metropolitan area have a Subtropical-Mediterranean climate, characterized by very mild and wet winters and long warm to hot and dry summers. The average annual temperature is 23.9 °C (75.0 °F) during the day and 12.4 °C (54.3 °F) at night. The average annual precipitation is 525 mm (20.7 in) per year, there are about 52 rainy days per year. Extreme temperatures have been 43.8 °C (110.8 °F) recorded on 25 July 2004 and −3.2 °C (26.2 °F) recorded on 28 January 2005 at Ronda Este.